It is known in the manufacture of sewing machine needles to employ various machining or metal cutting steps, but these are slow and costly and invariably leave sharp edges which require extensive finishing steps.
Die pressing and flow pressing steps have also been used heretofore in the formation of needle blades, but these known pressing operations have either been combined with milling or cutting operations or have involved the use of a sequence of different pressing dies so that a number of operations at different work stations was involved requiring successive handling of the needles with consequent high cost.